About

Eastern CT Community Gardens Association

How ECCGA Started

ECCGA is a non-profit organization that helps organizations and residents build raised beds for community gardens in order to grow fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables for consumption. All materials, plants, fencing and seeds we use to help establish the gardens are either donated or purchased through grant funding. We support environmentally sound practices, such as rain barrel collection for water, composting, soil testing, soil amendments and gleaning. By encouraging small community gardens, we educate the public on health issues and their relationship to food.

Mission "To directly educate and empower community gardeners in Eastern CT to create lasting and sustainable solutions for increasing food security"

How ECCGA Started

In 2008, Dave Fairman, Community Activist, learned from Homeland Security that residents of Eastern Connecticut had only a three day supply of food available to them at any given time. Eastern Connecticut Community Gardens Association (ECCGA) was subsequently established in 2011 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit to continue the Community Garden movement and to act as an educational catalyst for the planning, development and harvesting of organic fruits, vegetables, spices and herbs from Community Gardens. ECCGA works with existing organizations, schools and neighborhoods to establish new gardens to feed local residents and to glean unharvested produce for distribution to local food banks. Over 100 Community Gardens have been started in Eastern Connecticut.

Our Values

We believe that bountiful amounts of affordable, healthy food can and should be grown in and around Eastern Connecticut using simple, environmentally appropriate technology and renewable resources. We value sustainable growing practices as essential to our responsible participation in the restoration and preservation of our ecosystem.

We value learning through growing food, a process rooted in observation, reflection, and action, that deepens our understanding of the world around us and strengthens our capacity for problem solving.

We believe that when people work together to grow food and re-connect with the land, communities and families grow strong, hopeful, confident and healthy.

We value local knowledge and experience, and community dialogue. We believe that through collaboration we overcome barriers to sharing power and resources with community members and partner organizations to nurture healthy, powerful communities.